The following events may be of interest in the week ahead.  The House and Senate both return to work after a two-week recess.

During the Week

Weather permitting, Tuesday is the day the space shuttle Discovery will make its last trip aboard the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft as it moves from Kennedy Space Center to the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport, VA just outside of Washington for permanent exhibition.  NASA is anticipating spectacular views of Discovery’s arrival as it is flown over national landmarks in the Washington area.   Details on where to get the best view are on the Smithsonian’s website as well as NASA’s.

If all goes according to schedule, you can watch Discovery arrive and then hop up to Capitol Hill for the Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee markup of the FY2013 budget requests under its jurisdiction, which include NASA and NOAA.  It is at 2:30 pm in 192 Dirksen.  This is the first markup of the FY2013 appropriations season that affects NASA and NOAA.  It is followed one hour later with the markup of the T-HUD bill that includes the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation.

Of course it’s not clear how many of the space policy community will be in Washington on Tuesday since the National Space Symposium is being held this week (Monday-Thursday) in Colorado Springs, CO.  

Those are just a few of the space policy-related events coming up this week.   See below for a complete list.

Monday, April 16

• Continuation of events associated with space shuttle Discovery’s departure from Kennedy Space Center (KSC), scheduled for Tuesday morning at 7:00 am ET
• NASA press conference on Upcoming SpaceX Mission to ISS, time TBD (after the Flight Readiness Review is done), Johnson Space Center, Houston TX (watch on NASA TV)
• FameLab Astrobiology final competition, 7:00-9:00 pm ET, Atlanta, GA (watch on NASA TV or livestream)

Monday-Thursday, April 16-19

• National Space Symposium, Broadmoor Hotel, Colorado Springs, CO

Tuesday, April 17

• Space Shuttle Discovery departure from KSC and arrival at Dulles Airport, VA beginning at 7:00 am ET
• Senate Appropriations CJS Subcommittee markup, 2:30 pm ET, 192 Dirksen
• Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing on Defense Science & Technology, 2:30 pm ET, 222 Russell
• Senate Appropriations T-HUD subcommittee markup, 3:30 pm ET, 138 Dirksen

Wednesday, April 18

• House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on North Korea, 10:00 am ET, 2172 Rayburn

Friday, April 20

• Grand Strategy and the Strategic Triad, 12:00-2:00 pm ET, 200 Senate Visitors Center

Whirling space trash and panoramic views of Arizona’s Meteor Crater are only two of the reasons to see a new 3D movie — Space Junk 3D.

Shown at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History’s IMAX theater on March 16, 2012 as part of the Environmental Film Festival, the Melrae Pictures film tells the story of Don Kessler, the “father of space junk,” and raises public awareness about the issue that has defined his career.

Using the natural collisions of the universe as an analogy, the film has great computer-generated 3D imagery of asteroids colliding with each other and breaking into pieces that impact the Earth — hence the inclusion of Meteor Crater — and galaxies crashing into each other to form new galaxies.    It is a useful technique to then explain the thousands of objects in Earth orbit that may collide with each other and form yet more debris that imperils operating spacecraft.

An arcane and complicated subject– how many people even know the difference between LEO and MEO or MEO and GEO — the film uses storytelling to capture the public’s interest and 3D animation to provide a visual reference.   Lively questions from the audience of perhaps 150 people after the film was over suggested that they got the point that there’s a problem even if the details and solutions were not apparent.

Experts may quibble with a few of the facts (weather satellites are not in MEO), the sequencing is odd in places (one moment talking about GEO, the next about the Chinese ASAT test in 2007), the ending verges on silliness (depicting a giant orbiting recycling station that would dwarf ISS), and it does have a Carl Sagan-ish quality in almost gloryifying Kessler, but overall it is a useful and fun method to raise public awareness about the need for space sustainability.   Kudos to Melissa Butts and Kimberly Rowe who produced and directed the film.  Visit the Melrae Pictures website for information on where to see it.

Editor’s Note:  This review was originally published as an article on SpacePolicyOnline.com on March 17, 2012.  The first line of the second paragraph has been changed to indicate the actual date on which the movie was shown.

The following events may be of interest in the week ahead.  The House and Senate both are in session.

During the Week

This week is chock full of congressional hearings on space activities at NASA, DOD, NOAA, and USGS (which operates the Landsat satellites), not to mention a number of NASA Advisory Council (NAC) committee meetings leading up to the full NAC meeting on Thursday and Friday.   Not sure how much the hearings on NOAA and USGS will focus on space activities since their responsibilities are quite varied, but something of interest may be said.   Separately, NASA is sponsoring a day-long seminar on Thursday at George Washington University in connection with Women’s History Month on “Woman, Innovation and Aerospace.”  

Rather than listing these events day-by-day as we usually do, this week they are grouped into categories for those of you interested primarily in the NAC meetings, the congressional hearings, or the other events.  A day-by-day listing is available on our “Events of Interest” list and on the calendar on our website as always.  

NASA Advisory Council (NAC) meetings, all at NASA Headquarters, Washington DC

• Education and Public Outreach Committee, Monday
• Technology & Innovation Committee, Tuesday
• Science Committee, Tuesday-Wednesday
• Human Exploration & Operations Committee, Tuesday-Wednesday
• Information Technology & Infrastructure Committee, Wednesday
• Audit, Finance & Analysis Committee, Wednesday
• full NAC, Thursday-Friday

Congressional Hearings (all times EST)  Many congressional hearings are webcast and can be viewed on the relevant committee’s website, although most hearings held in rooms in the U.S. Capitol are not.

• Civil Space Activities – NASA
  • Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Keeping America Competitive Through Investments in R&D, Tuesday, 2:30 pm, 253 Russell (witnesses from OSTP, NIST, NSF and NASA)
  • Senate Commerce Cmte, Priorities, Plans and Progress of the Nation’s Space Program, Wednesday, 10:00 am, 253 Russell (witnesses: NASA Administrator Bolden, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson)
  • House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Commttee, NASA FY2013 Budget Request, Wednesday, 2:00 pm, 2318 Rayburn (witness: NASA Administrator Bolden)
• Civil Space Activities — NOAA (weather satellites) and USGS (Landsat land remote sensing satellites)
  • House Appropriations Interior and Environment subcommittee on FY2013 USGS budget request, Tuesday, 1:00 pm, B-308 Rayburn (witness: USGS Director McNutt)
  • House SS&T Cmte on FY2013 NOAA budget request, Tuesday, 2:00 pm, 2318 Rayburn (witness: NOAA Administrator Lubchenco)
  • Senate Commerce Cmte on FY2013 NOAA budget request, Wednesday, 2:30 pm, 253 Russell (witness:  NOAA Administrator Lubchenco)
• National Security Space Activities
  • House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee on FY2013 Air Force budget request, Tuesday, 10:00 am, H-140 Capitol (witnesses:  AF Secretary Donley and AF Chief of Staff Schwartz)
  • Senate Budget Committee on Perspectives on DOD FY2013 budget request, Tuesday, 10:30 am, 608 Dirksen (outside witnesses) 
  • House Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces Subcommittee on national security space activities, Thursday, 1:00 pm, 2212 Rayburn (witnesses:  DOD officials — Gen. Shelton, Gil Klinger, Greg Schulte, Betty Sapp)

Other

• NASA event on Women, Innovation and Aerospace, Thursday, 9:00 am -3:00 pm Jack Morton Auditorium at George Washington University, 805 21st St., NW, Washington DC (speakers include: NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, NOAA Deputy Administrator Kathy Sullivan, National Academy of Engineering Fellow Catherine Didion, Office of Personnel Management official Veronica Villalobos, and SpacePolicyOnline.com editor Marcia Smith)
• Secure World Foundation (SWF) Round Table on International Code of Conduct-International Perspectives, Thursday,  Brussels, Belgium (speakers include representatives to the European Union from the United States, Japan, and Australia; Gerard Brachet from the International Astronautical Federation; Pierre-Louis Lempereur from the European External Action Service; and Agnieszka Lukaszczyk from SWF)

The following events may be of interest in the week ahead.

The House and Senate are in recess (except for non-legislative pro forma sessions).

Monday-Tuesday, February 20-21

• NASA Future Forum and celebration of the 50th anniversary of John Glenn’s first U.S. orbital human spaceflight, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Tuesday, February 21

• Washington Space Business Roundtable luncheon with John Celli, President, Space Systems/Loral, University Club, Washington DC, 11:45 am – 1:45 pm ET

Tuesday-Thursday, February 21-23

• International Space University 16th Annual Symposium, Strasbourg, France

Thursday, February 23

• Marshall Institute and TechAmerica Space Enterprise Form Space Situational Awareness seminar, 601 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 600 Indiana Avenue Entrance, Washington DC, 9:00 – 11:00 am ET
• NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Commercial Space Committee, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, AL, 8:00 am – 2:30 pm CT (9:00 am  2:30 pm ET)
• NAC Planetary Science Subcommittee, teleconference, 2:00 – 4:00 pm ET

 Thursday-Friday, February 23-24

• NAC Astrophysics Subcommittee, NASA HQ, Washington DC
  • Thursday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm, room 8R40
  • Friday, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm, room 7H45

The following events may be of interest in the coming week.  Click on the links below or on our right menu, or check our full calendar also on the right menu, for more details. 

The House and Senate are both in session this week.  Times, dates and witnesses for congressional hearings are subject to change.  Check the relevant committee’s website for up to date information.

During the Week

Release of President Obama’s budget request for FY2013 will dominate conversation in Washington this week, even though many politicians and pundits already have declared it “dead on arrival.”   Champions of defense spending, for example, are criticizing the depth of proposed Pentagon cuts even as Republicans insist that the deficit must be dramatically reduced by cutting federal spending and not raising taxes.  The President’s Budget Request (PBR) does not reflect “sequestration,” the poison pill Congress and the White House included in the Budget Control Act last summer that would impose even more stringent cuts on both defense and non-defense discretionary spending.   The failure of last year’s congressional supercommittee to reach agreement on other methods of cutting the deficit officially meant that sequestration should be in effect, but no one at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue wants to swallow that pill.  Ignoring it appears to be the game plan of the moment.  The shrill partisan debate that characterized Washington last year seems destined to be repeated this year, amplified by election year politics.   What will happen to space program funding is anyone’s guess.  Nonetheless, release of the budget tomorrow is the opening shot of the FY2013 budget debate.  Many departments and agencies are holding briefings tomorrow or later in the week.  Noted below are those most strongly related to space policy.

This is also the final week of the WRC-12 conference in Geneva, Switzerland.  The last week is usually the most interesting — where major deals are cut.  We’ll keep you posted of anything that might dramatically affect allocation of frequencies or orbital slots for satellites.

Monday, February 13

• President Obama speaks to students at Northern Virginia Community College about the FY2013 Budget Request, Annandale, VA, 11:00 am ET, officially kicking off this year’s debate
• White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Government Printing Office (GPO) release the FY2013 budget request at GPO, 11:15 am. 
• OMB and other White House officials hold press conference on FY2013 budget request,  White House Eisenhower Executive Office Building, 12:30 pm ET
• White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) briefing on R&D and STEM Education in the FY2013 budget request, AAAS auditorium, 1200 New York Avenue, N.W., 1:30-2:30 pm ET
• NASA FY2013 budget briefing, NASA Headquarters, 2:00 pm ET, followed by individual teleconference briefings by the mission directorates and the chief technologist, see this NASA press release for details but HEOMD is at 3:30, SMD at 4:30, OCT at 5:15, and ARMD at 6:00).  NASA budget information will be posted on the NASA budget website at 1:00 pm ET.
• DOD FY2013 budget briefing, the Pentagon, 2:00 pm ET, followed by individual briefings by the Army, Navy and Air Force (see this DOD press release for details but Air Force is at 4:45)
• Kennedy Space Center Director Cabana available at KSC press site to discuss FY2013 budget request, Kennedy Space Center , FL, 4:15 pm ET

Tuesday, February 14

• SpacePolicyOnline.com loves our readers and wishes you all a Happy Valentine’s Day!
• NASA Pre-Proposal Conference for Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCAP) solicitation, Courtyard Marriott, Cocoa Beach, FL, starting at 8:30 am ET
• NASA “Industry and Academia Day” for Space Launch System Advanced Development, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, beginning at 9:30 am CT (10:30 am ET) 
• SASC Hearing on FY2013 DOD budget request, G-50 Dirksen, 9:30 am ET
• USGS budget briefing, USGS Headquarters, Reston, VA, 1:00 pm ET
• AIAA Commercial Space Update, Lockheed Martin Global Vision Center, Arlington, VA, 2:30-4:30 pm ET (you must have RSVP’d to AIAA by last Friday to attend — see the Feb. 14th entry on our full calendar for details)

Wednesday, February 15

• HASC hearing on FY2013 DOD budget request, 2118 Rayburn, 10:00 am ET
• Space Transportation Association (STA) meeting with Johnson Space Center Director Mike Coats, 253 Russell, 5:00 pm ET (you must RSVP)

Wednesday-Thursday, February 15-16

• FAA 15th annual Commercial Space Transportation conference,  Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington DC 

Thursday, February 16

• House Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing on FY2013 DOD budget request, 2359 Rayburn, 10:00 am ET
• NOAA budget briefing, Department of Commerce main building, 14th Street and Constitution Ave., NW, 1:00 pm ET

Friday, February 17

• House SS&T Hearing on FY2013 budget request for Federal R&D, 2318 Rayburn, 9:30 am ET

Friday-Saturday, February 17-18

• NASA Celebrates 50 Years of Americans in Orbit, NASA TV and Kennedy Space Center, FL

Potential interference between LightSquared’s satellite-terrestrial mobile broadband system and GPS was the subject of yet another congressional hearing today.  Numerous hearings were held last year in a variety of House committees, each warning of calamitous consequences if LightSquared is allowed to implement its system.   Today’s hearing before the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) committee was no different.

The hearing comes less than two weeks after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued its most recent directive about LIghtSquared.  Noting that the FY2012 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act  (part of the FY2012 Consolidated Appropriations Act) prohibits the FCC from allowing LightSquared to proceed until “concerns of potential widespread harmful interference” are resolved, the FCC declined to grant a request from LightSquared to make a declaratory ruling that GPS devices are not protected against harmful interference as long as LightSquared abides by the FCC’s technical parameters. 

The company launched a high powered satellite, SkyTerra, in 2010 to use in a mobile broadband system, but requested permission from the FCC to augment the satellite capacity with a network of 40,000 terrestrial cell towers — an Ancillary Technical Component (ATC) in FCC terminology.  In January 2011, the FCC gave LightSquared provisional permission to proceed with the ATC, but the provision was that it had to form a technical committee to perform tests to determine the extent to which interference with GPS would occur.  The radio frequency bands assigned to LightSquared are adjacent to some of the GPS bands.

The 2011 FCC decision prompted an outcry from GPS user communities.  Tests conducted by the FCC-required technical committee demonstrated that interference would indeed be a problem.  LightSquared modified its plans and also complained that it has complied with all of the FCC’s technical requirements.  It asserts that the interference is the fault of GPS receiver manufacturers who did not properly design the receivers.

Another round of tests was ordered last fall, but the results were similar.  On January 13, 2012, the government’s National Space-Based PNT (Positioning, Navigation and Timing) Advisory Board, which is playing a leading role in opposing LightSquared’s plans, sent a letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) stating its “unanimous conclusion … that both LightSquared’s original and modified plans … would cause harmful interference to many GPS receivers.”   NTIA, part of the Department of Commerce, oversees government use of radio frequencies, while the FCC governs their use by the private sector.

LightSquared complained that the tests were “rigged.”  It called on NTIA and the FCC to conduct another round of tests and for “fair and transparent oversight of the testing process….”

Aviation interests have been particularly vocal in opposing LightSquared because GPS is widely used in the aviation industry.  At today’s hearing before the aviation subcommittee of the House T&I committee, Deputy Secretary of Transportation John Porcari said no further testing was warranted at this time.   He added that the most recent tests were independently reviewed by Idaho National Lab and MIT Lincoln Lab.   Expanding broadband access to more Americans is a major goal of the Obama Administration, he said, but LightSquared is incompatible with “FAA requirements for low-altitude operations” near LightSquared transmitters.  Noting that the FAA had already spent over $2 million in testing and analyzing LightSquared’s proposal, he argued that further government investment “cannot be justified at this time.”

Other witnesses at the hearing represented the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a U.N. specialized agency that sets global standards and regulations for aviation safety; the Air Transport Association; the Air Line Pilots Association; the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association; Garmin AT, Inc.; and George Washington University.